Antonin Novotny

Antonin Novotny (10 December 1904-28 January 1975) was First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 14 March 1953 to 5 January 1968, succeeding Klement Gottwald and preceding Alexander Dubcek, and President of Czechoslovakia from 19 November 1957 to 22 March 1968, succeeding Antonin Zapotocky and preceding Ludvik Svoboda.

Biography
Antonin Novotny was born in Letnany, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary in 1904, and he was trained as a locksmith and worked in an arms factory near Prague. In 1921 he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and worked for it throughout the Interwar period. As a result of his political activities, he was incarcerated in the Mauthausen concentration camp from 1941 to 1945. After World War II, he rose quickly within the ranks of the Communist Party owing to his friendship with Klement Gottwald, whom he succeeded as First Secretary, and de facto leader of the country. He also became State President in 1957. A hardline Stalinist throughout his life, he was completely out of sympathy with Nikita Khrushchev's reversals of Stalinist repressino. Instead, he refused to condemn the repressive communist policies during the late 1940s and early 1950s, which culminated in the slanski trial, and for which he was partly responsible. His adherence to[ [Comecon]] policies of concentrating on heavy industry led to a severe economic recession from 1961 to 1963 and to student unrest, while his complete ignorance of Slovakian concerns and distinctiveness cost him the support of the Communist Party of Slovakia, which conspired to replace him with its leader, Alexander Dubcek, in early 1968. He died in Prague in 1975.